During a news conference covering violence in St. Louis on Friday (Oct. 28), Mayor Tishaura Jones was mid-answer when the sound of four gunshots interrupted her.
She responded to the gunshots by sarcastically remarking, “isn’t that wonderful?” and could be seen casually surveying her surroundings.
After her joint news conference on safety issues with the mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Jones wrote about the incident on Twitter.
I don’t flinch when gunshots ring out; my son and I often fall asleep to a lullaby of gunshots.
Mayor @QuintonLucasKC, Ald. @shanecohn, and I joined survivors and @TheJusticeDept for a neighborhood talk and walk to see community violence intervention programs up close. pic.twitter.com/9PQUHqArtV
— Mayor Tishaura O. Jones (@saintlouismayor) October 29, 2021
“I don’t flinch when gunshots ring out; my son and I often fall asleep to a lullaby of gunshots,” Mayor Jones wrote.
“I hear gunshots in my neighborhood every night,” she said, according to KMOV-TV in St. Louis. “I’m the first mayor in over 20 years to be born, raised and still live in north St. Louis, and it’s unfortunate, yes I heard it, but I didn’t flinch because I guess it’s a part of my life now.”
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Mayor Tishaura Jones said she and Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas met with violence survivors and toured several local violence intervention programs after the conference.
“This is the sort of thing that happens in too many American cities,” Lucas said, FOX 2 reported. “This community is working to do better for our babies like the tour we just took, and the neighborhood activist(s) who are saying maybe things have been always for generations, but we are committed to doing better.”
Watch a CNN clip from Mayor Jones’ news conference here.
